These Days
by thanatophilia
Summary: sea witch Thinking back on you.


**I pretend the 6th season never happened. **

* * *

She's eighteen before she comes looking for Tessa. Nikki (Mom, and sometimes, more and more oftentimes, Nikki) won't come, her face heats up and she straightens her blouse (she's gotten kind of fat and lazy). She murmurs that if Melinda wants to go she can. 

Mom used to hear from Richie sometimes, but…

"I don't know, he left and then he came back and he was different and then I left and now I'm different and…"

But Melinda knows this journey, this urge, is a big deal. She's got a pure-faced doll and some bizarre dreams that tell her so.

x

She's eighteen when she heads back to Vancouver. The place is bigger, the streets are smaller, and everything is crowded and dirty like she doesn't remember. Nikki had told her to stay away from the bad side of town, the old neighborhood, but it all seems like the bad side and all the neighborhoods are old.

She asks around everywhere uptown, looking for MacLeod and Noël and their antiques. The shop has been closed for years and, no, they don't know where that MacLeod went, say hello (_ciao, eh, hola, hallo_; the sounds of it make her head spin) if you find him.

So Melinda decides what her mother doesn't know won't hurt her and heads down the alleyways and starts asking for Richie Ryan, who's been gone even longer than MacLeod and Noël.

x

She heads to the library and feels like an idiot. It's been ten years, and it's her fault for assuming they would still be there but… Mom had thought so too, she'd seemed so sure they would be right there in their little antique shop, sending Richie on errands; helping people.

They're a business though, lots of businesses have websites, and Melinda types them into a search engine and is shocked by the pages of French that flash before her eyes. She clicks through them, unable to understand a word.

She keeps clicking until she's back in her own tongue.

x

She finds MacLeod's dojo fairly easily. Somewhere between the good and bad ends of town, it fucking figures, Melinda thinks.

She heads inside with trepidation and wonders if there could be more than one MacLeod, and of course there could be but… she sees him and is surprised she can recognize him so easily. Her mother's misfortunes are not so vivid in her mind, and sometimes she can barely remember Tessa's eyes are blue.

Duncan's eyebrows rise at her and he smiles a little bit, strangely polite and all that. "Can I help you with something?"

Melinda feels herself blushing and tries to stop, but that's hard. MacLeod is handsome. Nikki had always said that, that he was your stereotypical tall, dark and handsome, if there was anything stereotypical about perfection.

"I'm looking for MacLeod. Uh, Duncan, that is," she mumbles and plays with the sleeves of her jacket. "If that's you, I think it is."

"Yes, that is me. Have we met?" MacLeod grins to cover up his misgivings.

"Uh. Melinda, I mean, my name. We met when I was little, before Mom and moved to Danville."

Duncan's eyes light up and he remembers he and he says, "Just a second" and disappears into a back room and comes back with Richie. Mom has a picture of Richie in a scrapbook, younger, but not by a lot.

Richie is covered in sweat and he's giving her a funny look and before she can explain for herself, Duncan is introducing, "Little Melinda, your friend Nikki's girl."

"Shit," Richie muses at her. "You've sure grown. Man, you look just like Nikki, can't believe I didn't recognize you. What brings you here?"

They both realize in the same flash that something could be _wrong_ and Melinda holds up her hands against the concern in their faces.

"No, uh, see… I just came to see, uh, Tessa."

The pain in their expressions doesn't fade and the air gets kind of tight and they barely react when a customer comes into the dojo to work out.

x

They take her out to dinner in order to tell her Tessa is dead. Melinda doesn't know why it makes her cry so hard, maybe because the memories of her (of her voice, "_I'll miss you so very much…_") had made her epic; like a fairy godmother.

She tries not to cry, she really does, and she can see tears glistening in Richie's eyes too, while MacLeod refuses to give in. Her drinks from his wine glass very quietly and wipes at the corners of his mouth with his napkin.

"She was shot by a mugger," he murmurs and then goes back to eating.

Richie is gritting his teeth and rather than snap at Duncan he gets up and leaves.

It's quiet a long time, just Melinda's soft hiccups and Duncan's fork against his plate.

"Will you need a place to stay?"

x

Duncan makes her breakfast in the morning and she feels weird about that, Nikki would assume she'd _slept_ with him for that kind of treatment, but he'd locked himself in his room and they hadn't seen anything of Richie at all.

Duncan polite again, a little quieter, a little sadder, but he's polite and asks her about Danville and Mom.

"Things are great," she tells him. That seems to make him happy, maybe, she isn't _sure_ and his sadness makes her uncomfortable. If she'd never come… if she'd never come _looking_ he might still be smiling. Or perhaps not, reminder or not, Tessa is still dead.

x

"Richie'd probably like it if you and your mother called," Duncan says as he's seeing her to the bus. He gives her a card with the number and Melinda knows she'll call, even if Mom won't. (Even _if_ Mom is a coward.)

She chews on her bottom lip and stares at the card for a while before she throws herself forward and throws her arms around him. She holds on tight.

She shocks herself and she shocks him. He's barely recovered, reaching a hand for her hair, when she jerks back and boards the bus in a hurry, no backwards glances.

_Tessa's dead_, she'll have to tell Nikki (who has idolized and emulated her ever since--). She'll have to tell her that Duncan and Richie are much the same as before (so much, very much, too much--) just sadder, much sadder; lonely, even if they still have each other (because there is no nice side of Vancouver, every street is the old neighborhood these days).

* * *

**Standard Disclaimers.**


End file.
